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The best poker game currently on Android.

Red Poker Club is a version of Texas Hold 'em for Android powered phones. As poker is probably the fastest growing pastime on the Internet, pretty much every device is trying to get a piece of the action.

Red Poker Club can be downloaded from the Android Market and is very light on space if you are running short. Once the download has completed you are ready to go. In order to be able to play poker, you will need to set up an account which just consists of a user name and a password, this is to allow you to maintain your chip count between gaming sessions. Once this has been set up, you are given $1000 and its time to find a seat and play some cards.

Tables are categorised by the size of the blinds. Small tables allow you to play on tables with 1/2 chip blinds right up to 25/50 chips. Medium tables range from 50/100 chips right up to 500/1000 chips. Large tables range from 1k/2 right up to 5k/10k. After this point, we are getting to the serious players, the Big tables range from 10k/20k right up to 1m/2m and the pinnacle of the game, the high rollers range from 2m/4m up to 4m/8m. If you manage to reach this stage then you really are an exceptional poker player as you will need to have at least 20 million chips in order to participate.

When you have found a table that meets your ability and chip stack, its time to play. All tables at Red Poker Club are five seated which means you can potentially play with up to four other live players although you only need one extra player to have enough for a game.

As this is Texas Hold 'em poker, standard rules apply where each player takes turn to bet in a clockwise direction and the person with the best hand or the last person, not to fold wins the hand. Betting in the game is accomplished by pressing on screen buttons for either 'Bet', 'Call', 'Check' or 'Fold'. If you decide to bet, you then need to slide your finger along an on screen bar which determines the size of your bet. This is all very simple but it can get difficult to chose the exact amount you wish to bet due to the sensitivity of the slider.

As well as playing poker, there is also an in built chat so that you can chat to the other players at your table should you wish to. This works very well, the only issue with it is that the dialogue window is only three lines long and this also communicates each player's actions, so a message can disappear off the screen very quickly. You can interact with other players in several other ways. Providing you have enough chips, you can buy gifts for other players such as drinks. This is a purely cosmetic feature that doesn't really add anything to the game except a bit friendly appreciation for each other. If you really get on with a player, you can add them to your friends list which will then tell you when they are playing at the same time as you are. You can opt to join their table should you wish to.

The more you play Red Poker Club, the higher you will move up the ranks. Ranking doesn't unlock any extra features but serves as an indication to other players how competent you are at the game.

Every day you sign in to the application, you are awarded 1000 chips but if you are really struggling, you can use your paypal account and use real money to buy different values of chips. Alternatively, you can win 500k chips each day by entering into a draw, in order to enter the draw you just need to rank the application at the Android Market and add a comment. If you are the lucky person to be selected, you win the prize.

The application also has its own Facebook fan page. You can link to this from the main menu if you are interested in taking a look.

With over 250,000 downloads already, Red Poker Club is one of the most popular Android apps to date. If you like your poker then this is a definite download. The app is free to download and the only expense you are likely to incur is if you wish to buy the bundles of extra chips. If the application was to evolve in future, a full tournament would be high on the list of many user's priorities. This feature would be the icing on the cake of what is already an excellent application.